


i (don't) wanna get better

by Nearly



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: And He Gets One!, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Anxious Evan "Buck" Buckley, Buck Centric, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Evan "Buck" Buckley Needs A Hug, Gen, Hurt Evan "Buck" Buckley, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Self-Harm, it's not graphic but it is mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:48:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24693289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nearly/pseuds/Nearly
Summary: The thing is, Buck knows he’s too impulsive, he knows he’s too reckless. He doesn’t need Bobby chewing him out after a call to tell him that. He knows he acts without thinking. He knows he could get himself hurt.Sometimes, though, in the privacy of his own head, he thinks that that’s kind of the point.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley & Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Comments: 39
Kudos: 341





	i (don't) wanna get better

**Author's Note:**

> literally just a fic for a friend that I spent too long on. read the tags, stay safe, know what you came here for. I won't tell you not to read, I'm not your mom
> 
> (title from I Wanna Get Better by Bleachers)

The thing is, Buck knows he’s too impulsive, he knows he’s too reckless. He doesn’t need Bobby chewing him out after a call to tell him that. He knows he acts without thinking. He  _ knows _ he could get himself hurt. 

Sometimes, though, in the privacy of his own head, he thinks that that’s kind of the point. 

He’d never say as much to the team, of course. It’s not something he wants them to know. His coping mechanisms aren’t the best, and he knows they aren’t healthy, but that’s as much acknowledgement as he’s willing to give it. Besides, his team gets worried enough when he gets hurt on calls, by accident. How upset would they be if they knew he hurt himself, sometimes? On  _ purpose.  _ Buck knows how messed up that is. He’s been reminding himself of that fact for years. 

It’s not like he thinks they would judge him. He knows they wouldn’t. They’ve been called to scenes before where someone has gone a little too far, cut a little too deep, and they’ve had to patch them up—Buck ignores, every time, how his twisted mentality makes him a little bit jealous—and the team has never once had an unkind thing to say about the people they’ve had to help. But there’s always a part of him, underneath the trust, that makes him wonder if it would be different because it’s him, this time. 

He decides it’s just easier to keep it quiet. He has it under control. He’s kept it a secret since he was a teenager, he can let it stay that way, right? So Buck only cuts where no one else will see, unless he lets them. His hips, his thighs; anywhere he can cover up without raising any suspicion, even in the heat of an LA summer. To an outside eye, it looks like everything is normal, which is exactly what he wants. No one notices. No one asks questions he can’t answer. Everything is fine. 

* * *

Everything is fine, until it’s not. It’s not really Buck’s fault, though. He just finally got comfortable in his own apartment, and allowed himself to settle in. It shouldn’t mean anything. Except that for Buck, getting comfortable means he stops worrying about leaving things around; Certain things that he maybe  _ shouldn’t _ feel so comfortable leaving around. So, his first mistake: he leaves his blade out on his bathroom counter. He doesn’t even think twice about it, knowing that he’s the only one who lives here and he has to go back later and clean it properly, anyway. It shouldn’t have been a problem. Except he forgets to go back later and clean it, or put it away. His second mistake: he gets distracted. By Eddie, who he invites over for pizza and beers and shitty movies. 

“I’m just gonna use your bathroom before I head out,” Eddie says, once they’ve gathered up their pizza boxes and beer bottles. Maybe Buck’s third mistake was getting too comfortable with Eddie, because it doesn’t even cross his mind to worry if he’d put away his blade. He’s as comfortable with Eddie in his apartment as he is when he’s alone. More so, even. 

Eddie disappears up the stairs. Buck shuffles over to dump the boxes into his recycling bin while he waits, and then when Eddie still hasn’t returned, he starts to stack the plates and pile them in the sink to wash later. It’s another long moment before Eddie finally emerges, a troubled look flitting across his face that Buck barely catches. Buck frowns at him and asks, “Everything alright, man?” 

“Might’ve had a bit too much pizza,” Eddie jokes, covering up his unease with an easy laugh and a grin. Buck kind of loves that grin, actually. He doesn’t stop to think, even for a second, that Eddie might have found something he shouldn’t. Why would he? 

They finish with the cleanup before Eddie heads home, with a fist bump and a promise to get Buck a coffee in the morning from that place he likes by the firehouse. Buck switches off the TV, still paused halfway through the credits of the last movie they watched, and wipes up a small sauce spill on the coffee table. He writes himself a reminder on a sticky note to take the trash out before his shift, and sticks it to the fridge where he knows he’ll see it in the morning. He even remembers to lock his apartment door before he heads upstairs. Everything is fine.

Buck goes straight for his bathroom. He wants to fall right into bed and sleep until his shift starts, but he knows if he doesn’t change out the bandage on his hip before he does, it’ll itch like crazy tomorrow. Plus, he has to brush his teeth. Nobody likes day-old pizza breath in the morning. He flicks the light on as he enters and perches himself on the edge of his bathtub.

As he reaches for the first-aid kit beside the sink, his mind wanders. It worries him, sometimes, how normal he’s let this become. It’s like a routine that he’s settled into. Logically he knows that most people don’t do this to themselves, but he’s gotten so used to it. It’s a part of his life the same as anything else. It's—wait. What the fuck? 

Buck's finally got the kit in his hands but his eyes are locked on the edge of the sink. He remembers, then, what he'd pushed aside when he'd rushed out to answer the door for Eddie earlier. His  _ blade.  _ And, Jesus Christ, he'd just left it  _ sitting there.  _ It's small, but it stands out against the white of his countertop, and it's even got a spot or two of blood on it because he'd put it down without cleaning it and then he'd let his friend into his apartment, with it out in the open like that, with his  _ blood  _ on it, and—oh, god. He'd gotten too comfortable. He'd slipped up.  _ Fuck.  _

His anxiety skyrockets instantly. Did Eddie see it? Maybe not. He might not have even noticed it was there. A razor blade isn’t a weird thing to have in a bathroom. But did he see the blood? Is that why he took so long in the bathroom, why he had that look on his face when he left? Would he even know what it’s for? There are so many questions swirling in Buck’s head, a building maelstrom, but he doesn’t have answers for any of them.

Buck’s hands are shaking. The first-aid kit is rattling with the force of it, still clutched in his fingers, and that’s what breaks him out of his spiral—Whether or not Eddie suspects anything, Buck still has a bandage to change. He still has a shift tomorrow. Until he knows for sure what Eddie saw, he’s just going to have to act like nothing’s wrong. And he’s good at that, isn’t he? He wills his hands to stop their trembling. It takes a bit of fumbling at the clasps of the kit before he gets it open, but he manages, and moves through his routine of cleaning and rebandaging his wounds. He cleans off his blade, puts it away, and tries not to think about what he might have just screwed up. 

By the time he’s finished up in the bathroom and all but collapsed into bed, he’s more exhausted than he honestly thought a person could be. He wants to sleep, wants to avoid the anxiety roiling in his gut, but he can’t stop thinking about Eddie. If Eddie knows, does he judge him? Is he disgusted? Buck is disgusted by himself, sometimes. It wouldn’t surprise him if Eddie was too. 

_ Stop it,  _ Buck tells himself, shoving the thoughts away as best he can. He pulls his covers up and forces himself to calm, to close his eyes and stop thinking so hard. He doesn’t even have any proof that anything has changed. Everything is fine. 

* * *

Buck wakes up to his alarm. It’s blaring from somewhere next to his ear, an irritating, jingling tone that never fails to annoy him out of bed. He groans and slips an arm out from where he’s curled up underneath his blankets, reaching blindly in the direction of his nightstand. When his hand finds his phone, he pulls it back into his little cocoon and silences it. Buck blinks and squints at the time, fighting back a yawn.  _ 7:30, _ the screen reads. Half an hour before his shift starts. After last night, he almost wants to call in sick. It’s the first time he’s had that thought since starting at the 118, because he loves his job; even just being at the firehouse makes him happy, on shift or not. But he’s tired, and his ridiculous worrying picks up again the moment he thinks about going to work. He doesn’t want to face Eddie.

He sighs and gets up anyway, because he told himself he was going to act normal, and nothing is more normal for Buck than heading into work with a smile on his face. Even if he spends most of the next half hour moping around his apartment, trying to work up the motivation to get his uniform on, he still manages to make it to the station on time.

Giving himself a moment to just sit in his jeep and reassure himself before he heads in helps to soothe his frazzled nerves, if only a little. There’s no reason to be this freaked out. It’s just another day at work like any other, where he’ll hide the evidence of his unsavory habits like he always does. 

_ And, _ Buck thinks, just to make himself feel better,  _ I’ll just keep an eye on Eddie. _ If he starts acting weird, Buck will know something’s up. It’ll be fine. It’ll be  _ fine.  _

He sits there long enough that he’s still in his seat when Eddie’s truck pulls into the spot beside him. Buck takes a heavy breath and steels himself before looking up, catching Eddie’s eye just as he cuts the engine. Eddie grins the same way he does every morning. Buck watches as he climbs out of his truck, balancing a tray of coffee cups in one hand as he slams the door closed. That’s what sells it, honestly, because when Eddie gets worried, he gets forgetful. But he remembered the stupid promise of coffee he jokingly made last night, so he must not have anything else on his mind. Buck’s in the clear; Eddie doesn’t know. 

_ Or maybe, _ his treacherous mind supplies,  _ he knows, he just doesn’t care. _ Buck’s fingers tighten on the steering wheel, knuckles white. The thought hurts, in a way he didn’t expect. Eddie is his best friend; he trusts him with his life. They’ve got each other’s back. The idea of Eddie judging him terrifies him, but somehow the idea of Eddie not caring at all is a thousand times worse. 

A sharp tap on his window startles him, and Buck jumps. He blinks and turns, realizing that Eddie had come around to the side of his jeep to get his attention during his little sojourn into dreamland. Buck feels himself smile before he knows he’s doing it. Eddie just does that to him.

“You coming in? Or were you just gonna sit there for your whole shift?” Eddie teases, voice muffled slightly through Buck’s window. He lifts the coffee tray so Buck can see. “Coffee’s getting cold.” 

He tamps his anxiety down, shoves his thoughts into a box and throws away the key, before reaching for his door. Eddie has to stumble out of the way with the force Buck puts behind swinging it open, but he’s laughing. Buck hops out and makes grabby hands for his coffee. 

“Oh, god, I love coffee,” he says, as soon as he can wrap his fingers around the cup. He takes a long swig and sighs at the taste, letting the heat of the drink leech the tension out of his body. 

“Ugh, you don’t have to make love to it,” Eddie mutters. Buck snorts and elbows him lightly in the side.  _ This is normal,  _ Buck thinks,  _ this is fine.  _

“Did I hear something about coffee?” Hen asks, leaning over the balcony. Eddie holds up the tray of coffees in response as they head up the stairs to the loft. Hen grabs one and Chim goes for two, carrying one over to where Bobby is standing by the stove, scrambling some eggs. It’s just like any other morning. They settle into breakfast with the team, and Buck honestly,  _ honestly  _ thinks he’s safe. His slip up last night has gone unnoticed. Everything is fine.

But, of course, the universe just has to prove him wrong. Buck doesn’t get any of the luck, does he? 

They finish up breakfast and clean the table amidst the usual bickering. Bobby ducks into his office, trying to get in some paperwork while they have time so he doesn’t have to stay late. Hen and Chim jump on the chance to play some games, heading for the lounge area. Buck starts to follow, hoping he can get a turn in before they have a call, but Eddie stops him with a hand on his arm while they’re still out of earshot of the others. 

“Hey, man, can we talk?” Oh, shit. Panic hits Buck like a freight train, slamming his heart right up into his throat. He feels like he’s choking on it. Buck knew, he  _ knew  _ that Eddie had seen his blade last night. He’d pushed it down and tried to convince himself otherwise, but now he’s sure. Eddie wouldn’t have that nervous glint in his eye unless it was something serious, and he wouldn’t have waited this long to say something if it was about Christopher. God, Buck really wishes this wasn’t happening right now. 

“Sure,” he forces out after a moment, nearly breathlessly. He doesn’t want to talk about this. He doesn’t want to acknowledge it. He doesn’t want to look Eddie in the eye now that he knows how much of a messed up, self-destructive  _ freak  _ Buck is—but Buck can’t deny Eddie anything, even if all he wants to do is admit that Buck disgusts him. 

The alarm sounds right as Eddie is opening his mouth to speak, effectively cutting him off. He huffs a breath out through his nose, annoyed, and keeps his grip around Buck’s wrist just long enough to say, “Come over later. I’ll order Thai.” 

Buck nods minutely, and Eddie releases him. He takes off towards the truck without another word, leaving Buck standing there staring after him.

“Get your ass in the rig, Buckley,” Bobby calls jovially as he jogs past him. Buck lets out a quiet, nervous laugh, and allows himself no more than a half second to calm his racing heart before he heads for the truck too. 

* * *

Buck’s shift is over far more quickly than he would’ve liked. He goes through the motions in a haze, acting more on muscle memory than anything else. By the time they pull back into the station after their last call of the day, the lack of sleep from last night and his dread at the looming conversation with Eddie have rolled together into one big blanket of exhaustion that settles heavy across his shoulders.

He packs up more slowly than usual, and only realizes when he’s finally managed to drag himself back out to his jeep that Eddie’s truck has already left the lot. It crosses his mind as he’s sliding behind the wheel that this is Eddie’s way of giving him an out; if he wanted to make sure they talked tonight, make sure that Buck couldn’t get out of it, he’d have stayed and insisted on driving him home. But this way, Buck has the choice to go back to his apartment, to avoid dealing with this for at least one more day. He thinks about it as he pulls away from the station. He’s been at war with himself over it since last night, but he told Eddie he’d come over, and Buck has never been big on breaking promises. Besides, he knows Eddie won’t just let it drop. He may have given him an out for tonight, but all that would do is delay the inevitable and make everything harder than it needs to be. 

Before he even consciously recognizes what he’s doing, Buck is pulling into Eddie’s driveway. He cuts the engine and just sits there, trying to get his thoughts in order. Eddie hadn’t actually  _ said  _ that he knew about Buck’s...issues. He’d just asked if they could talk. It could mean anything, right? He could just be jumping to conclusions, right? 

Except, Buck is so damn sure he’s not. Because he knows his best friend like the back of his own hand, and he knows what his  _ ‘we need to talk about you’ _ face looks like. That’s the expression he’d been wearing at the station. There’s no escaping this conversation now, because Eddie would just come back the next day, or the next, or the next, until Buck started talking. 

God, he really needs to put out for some better seats if he’s going to spend this much time sitting in his car. Buck looks towards where Eddie’s porch light has just blinked on, brightening the darkening driveway. He should get out, go knock on the door like he knows Eddie is waiting for, do  _ something  _ besides sitting here and letting the anxiety settle like an itch beneath his skin. He thought he’d panicked himself out on shift, but this is like a fresh wave breaking over him before he can stop it. He’s so wound up, with nowhere for that tension to go. 

_ Just get it over with,  _ he tells himself, and finally climbs out of his jeep. He gives himself the time it takes to get from the driveway to the porch to get his shit together, and then he reaches up to knock. Buck’s knuckles rap out a hollow note against the wood once, twice. He rocks back on his heels to wait, shoving his hands into his pockets. 

“Hey, Buck,” Eddie greets barely a second later, swinging the door open wide. The open relief on his face is almost startling. It’s clear he was expecting Buck to run as far from this situation as he could, which is fair, because Buck was honestly expecting that too. “Come on in, the food’s already here.” 

“You get my chicken pad thai?” 

“With extra spice, like always.” 

“You know me so well, Eds.” It’s easy conversation, almost easy enough that Buck could forget what’s hanging in the air between them. Almost. 

“Where’s Christopher?” He asks, realizing he hasn’t seen the kid yet. Buck can see the bags on the table, once Eddie steps out of the way to let him in the house, but Christopher is nowhere in sight. Eddie moves into the kitchen to root around for chopsticks, leaving Buck to close the door behind himself. 

“He’s with Abuela tonight,” Eddie answers. When he turns around, chopsticks finally in hand, there’s an unreadable look on his face. Buck just nods, rifles through the takeout bags to find his pad thai, and goes straight for the couch. He’s still all jittery, a bundle of nerves all knotted up in his gut so tight he can’t decide if he wants to throw up or scream. He stuffs his mouth full of noodles to avoid doing either. 

Eddie settles in beside him with his own food, and they sit in almost-amicable silence for a moment as they eat. Not for the first time, Buck is left wishing desperately that he hadn’t been so forgetful last night. They’re dancing around the elephant in the room, they both know it, but Buck sure as hell isn’t going to be the one to start this discussion. Eddie wanted to talk, so Eddie gets to talk. That’s how they’re going to play this one. 

Eddie is making faces into his takeout container like he’s going to find the right words hiding in his curried beef. It’s not exactly awkward, but it is strange; this stretch of silence is probably the longest either of them has gone without cracking a joke to the other since they pulled the grenade out of that guy's leg. 

“Buck,” Eddie starts finally, haltingly. “Last night. In your apartment. Uh, your bathroom? I found—” 

“I know,” Buck says. He doesn’t look at Eddie. The edges of the takeout container in his hands fray and crumble where he’s picking at them, rolling bits of cardboard between his trembling fingers. 

“Buck,” Eddie repeats, like he doesn’t know what else to say but knows he has to say  _ something _ . And then quietly, so quietly, like anything louder would cause one or both of them to shatter, he asks, “Have you been hurting yourself?”

Buck pulls a long breath in through his nose, heaves it out in a sigh. There’s no hiding it anymore. Eddie knows. 

“Yeah,” he says simply. He can feel Eddie staring at him, waiting for something more, maybe. But there’s nothing else. This thing, this secret Buck has kept for years, is out in the open air between them. Now Buck’s just waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

“Okay,” Eddie breathes out, after a moment of Buck’s silence. 

Buck finally looks up, confusion pinched in the space between his eyebrows. “Okay?”

“Yeah,” Eddie repeats, more confidently this time. “Okay.” 

“That’s it?” Buck asks incredulously, “Just… okay?”

“Did you want me to say something different?” 

_ I was hoping we wouldn’t talk about this at all,  _ Buck thinks, but doesn’t say. Eddie looks out of his depth, but Buck is sure he looks worse. The box in his hands crumples inwards, and he hurries to set it down before he can slop pad thai all over the floor.

“You don’t think I’m disgusting?” he blurts before he can stop himself. 

“What?” Eddie reels back from the question, bewildered. “No, of course not!” 

Buck looks away again, bringing one hand up to rub a thumb along his birthmark. He shies away from Eddie when he reaches for his shoulder, curling a little further into himself. Eddie makes a sympathetic sound and drops his hand back to his lap. 

“I don’t think you’re disgusting,” he says, ignoring Buck’s light flinch at the words, “I think that you’re my best friend, and you’re hurting.” 

“I’m handling it,” Buck mutters, but it’s weak. 

“It’s okay if you’re not, man. I mean, I’m a little out of my depth here,” Eddie laughs, a little nervously, “but you don’t have to deal with this alone, you know? I want to help.” 

Buck’s breath shudders as it leaves him, long and slow. He rubs a hand roughly over his face and tries to gather himself. Abruptly, he shifts, putting a little more distance between himself and Eddie on the couch. He sits up a little straighter. 

“Well. Uh, I guess– I guess we’re having this conversation now, huh?” He bites, a little more harshly than he intended. “You probably have, like, questions–”

“Hey, no,” Eddie cuts him off, shaking his head, “you don’t have to tell me any details if you’re not ready for that.” 

“I–” Buck starts and then stops himself, worrying at his bottom lip with his teeth. He feels off-balance now that they’re really talking, now that he’s admitted to this thing he’s kept hidden for years. 

“You know I would never judge you for this, right?” Eddie says, leaning forward to catch Buck’s gaze. He chuckles quietly. “Lord knows I’m not one to talk when it comes to shitty coping mechanisms.” A laugh bubbles up before Buck thinks twice about it, surprising them both. The joke does the job of smoothing over the last bit of tension between them, incredibly. Buck feels himself relax just the slightest bit, and finds that he almost  _ wants  _ to talk now. Like maybe, just maybe, it could actually help?

“I think I should, actually?” he tries again. “Tell you, I mean. It’s just, it’s hard? Because I’ve never talked to anyone about this before and I know it’s weird, trust me, I know. I didn’t even tell Maddie.” Eddie shifts beside him, finding a more comfortable position maybe, but doesn’t say anything. Buck is weirdly grateful, because he thinks he’d freeze up again if Eddie tried to interrupt him at this point. 

“I started when I was like, fifteen or something, right after Maddie left with Doug, so she already had enough to deal with,” Buck’s voice is self-deprecating, bitter and raw. Now that he’s started, it’s like the floodgates have opened up. Like the words were just waiting, hiding beneath the surface until he had the chance to spill his guts, and now they’re bubbling up because he finally,  _ finally,  _ has someone to talk to. 

“And I thought,  _ ‘I can stop whenever I want’ _ , right?” he continues, “‘Cause that’s what you think, when you’re a kid. You think you’ll just do this for a bit, until you feel better, and then you’ll stop, right? But the thing is, you can’t! You can’t, because it’s like an addiction, because you thought it would make you feel better but it doesn’t, because nothing does, and you want to stop because you know you’re fucked up but you  _ can’t,  _ and eventually it’s the only thing that makes you feel anything except  _ fucking  _ sad all the time–”

He cuts himself off with a barely audible whine, feeling like his chest is caving in. Eddie reaches for him again without a word, and Buck lets him fold him into a hug. It doesn’t even register that he’s crying until he feels a tear drip off the end of his nose, dampening a tiny spot on Eddie’s shirt. Buck immediately brings a hand up to scrub at his face and tries to pull away. 

“I didn’t want to do this to myself, Eddie, I swear I didn’t–” His breath hitches, and he sniffles hard. “This is so pathetic.” 

“You don’t have to be ashamed of struggling, Buck,” Eddie says softly. That’s all it takes for Buck to lose his precarious hold on the waterworks. His expression crumbles and he drops his head into his hands, shoulders trembling. Eddie just rubs a soothing hand down his back, steady and grounding, and lets him cry. 

* * *

Eventually, Buck’s tears run dry. Somehow he and Eddie have ended up half curled against each other on one end of the couch. It’s not exactly comfortable, but Eddie’s hand has switched to tracing circles with his thumb across Buck’s shoulder and Buck, exhausted as he is, can’t find it in himself to move.

“Would you have ever told me?” Eddie asks after a moment of quiet, other than Buck’s occasional sniffle. Buck picks his head up a bit, brow furrowed. 

“What?” 

“About your self-harm,” Eddie explains. Buck tenses involuntarily, because as much as he knows exactly what it is he’s been doing to himself, he’s always hated talking about it directly. He tiptoes around the topic, even in his own head. 

“Would you have ever told me?” Eddie asks again, “If I hadn’t found that blade?” 

Buck snorts bitterly and says, “It’s not the sort of thing I’d want to share with the class, Eddie.” 

Even now, he doesn’t really want to talk about it. They’ve already gotten through the hard part, and he’s still uncomfortable. He thinks that’s how it’s always going to be, because no matter how comfortable he’s gotten with Eddie, he’s never going to be quite comfortable with himself. 

“Right, sorry,” Eddie amends quickly, “That’s not a fair question.” 

“No, I’m sorry,” Buck sighs. “I don’t mean to snap. I’m just not used to talking about this.” 

Eddie hums quietly in response, and Buck can hear it rumble through his chest. He thinks again about pulling away, but decides it’s too much effort. If this was going to feel weird, it probably would’ve started when he was crying all over Eddie’s shirt, so he thinks he can safely say they’re both fine with it. 

“Eddie?” Buck starts, because his brain is still stuck in hyperdrive. He’d be the first to crown himself king of overthinking, that’s for sure. This thought in particular has been stuck in his mind all day, and he suddenly has an almost desperate need for an answer. “Why didn’t you ask me before? It was just us, at my place, when you found it. Why’d you wait?” 

“I didn’t want to be angry,” Eddie says. His hand stills it’s movement against Buck’s shoulder. “That was my first reaction, when I figured it out. I was angry that you’d been doing that to yourself, I was angry that I didn’t know how to help, I was angry that you didn’t tell me. But that’s not fair. So I gave myself a day to get my head on straight. Did some research.” 

“You did research?” Buck asks, voice coloured by disbelief. 

“Well, yeah,” Eddie answers, like it’s no big deal. Like he isn’t possibly the only person Buck’s heard of who’s had a reasonable, supportive first reaction to something like this. Like he didn’t just give Buck exactly what he needed, without even thinking twice. “I wanted to be able to support you, the right way. I didn’t want to do something wrong and chase you away.”

“I don’t think you could get rid of me if you tried,” Buck teases. Eddie flicks him. 

“Shut up, asshole, I’m trying to be heartfelt,” he grouches, but then his expression turns solemn. “But I’m serious, Buck. I’m here for you, whenever you need me. Call me, text me, whatever. Even if it’s four in the morning, I’ll answer. I’ve got your back.” 

Honestly, Buck doesn’t even know how to respond to that. He’s getting all choked up again, and he really doesn’t want to open his mouth if all he’s going to do is start crying. Again.

“I just want to help,” Eddie reiterates before Buck can bring himself to say anything at all, and Buck can’t help but smile. It’s small, barely an imitation of his usual grin, but it’s something. 

“Okay,” he says. 

“Okay?” Eddie parrots, looking baffled as he blinks down at him. 

“Yeah,” Buck says, repeating Eddie’s words from earlier. “Okay.” 

Eddie laughs, then, and Buck’s smile stretches a little wider. He can’t help but feel lighter, now that he knows Eddie is on his side. It doesn’t fix anything, really. Buck still has scars; He’s going to have more. He knows that. Even with Eddie’s help, he’s going to struggle, because that’s just how this goes. That’s his life. But at least he doesn’t have to carry it alone anymore. 

Buck lets himself curl more comfortably into Eddie’s side and thinks,  _ everything is fine.  _ This time, he thinks he might actually mean it. 

**Author's Note:**

> stay safe, babes. as always I'm on [tumblr](https://nearly-writes.tumblr.com/), I'm absolutely willing to talk if you need it, just send me an ask! also comment and kudos bc I'm really proud of this fic actually


End file.
